Dr. Mercola January 16 2007 3,105 views
I've pointed out numerous times over the years how conventional wisdom of physicians and health care workers can lead to your death by medicine in a big hurry. And, many of them occur because of your local pharmacy every month.
Unfortunately, a recent report from the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine confirms the findings of a news report I posted two years ago that a doctor's poor handwriting can be deadly.
Fact is, sloppy handwriting -- interpreted incorrectly by a nurse or pharmacist -- contributes to the deaths of more than 7,000 Americans annually. Another number that makes all the difference: Less than a third of all American doctors write 80 percent of the nation's overall prescription volume.
While much of this interesting Time piece focuses on ways to prevent such errors, in part via Web-based tools developed by the National e-prescribing Patient Safety Initiative, steps like these do nothing to improve drug safety or slow down conventional medicine's first impulse to throw a drug at a problem, rather than treat conditions through safer, more natural means.
Boy is this the truth, Doctors tend to have poor handwriting. I am not sure if it is from all the prescriptions they write or what. Having had to decipher several doctors handwriting over the years. I started calling them when I could not read something they wrote. Boy did that make most of them mad. The few that did not get mad earned my respect.
mmc88121
As a Registered Nurse who has worked in the Emergency Room for more than a decade, I have seen my fair share of terrible writing. Although this is true, I must stand up for the changes that have happened. In my area doctors are now required to write their prescriptions directly into a computer, they are printed on script paper, and then the doctor signs them. This has made medication errors decline in our hospital, and made it nicer for us nurses. I have met my share of doctors who were unable to reread their own writing! However, most doctors that I have worked with; would rather you ask them what it is they want for their patient than to see them be harmed.
So, as my motto goes: If I can't read, don't understand it, or at ALL feel uncomfortable with it-----ASK!
Anita from Ohio
Last year, I experienced this first hand- or almost. My youngest had an ER OP surg. The doctor gave me a script while telling me what it was and the dosage. I read along as he spoke. At the drug store, the pharm. looked at the paper- filled what he thought he saw. BUT when I got home, the dose was a full 4x the actual dosage that was written! When I called the drug store, he checked and said it was correct. So, I had to call the doctor back- still in surgery- to get this corrected. Later, the pharm called to apologize- he could not read what the doctor wrote... I asked him didn't seem alittle odd for a child? He told me they fill what the doctor writes and he overlooked that it was for a child! Had I not listened to the doctor and confirmed he had written it as he said- I am not sure I would have caught it in time.
I worked in a local hospital as a unit secretary and had to decipher doctors precriptions and then rewrite the prescription and dosage on a med sheet. That was the hardest part of learning that job. I think doctors take classes in college on how to write bad. A number of times, I was way off the mark and thank God the nurse that would have that patient double checked behind me. If she could not read it either, all the nurses would hudle around and try to read the doctors writing. If she was not sure, she would then have to call the doctor and a number of times, the nurse got off the phone in tears because the doctor would yell at them so bad for calling. It made some of the nurses scared to even call at all. I think all hospitals should upgrade to all computers when it comes to precriptions, it would save many lives and save many nurses the anguish of having to call the doctor.